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Monitor Function in SmartOffice – A Quick Way to Find Table/Field Names on M3 Panels

Have you ever spent more time than you would have liked while looking for a table and/or field name in Metadata Publisher so you could build a query, report, mash-up, etc.? The field name in the bottom right corner of the F1-Help text or in the text itself can sometimes give you a clue, but not always. You can also find it (sometimes) in the list of available fields from Tools| Personalize | Scripts, but the table names aren’t always evident there either.

In case you haven’t already found the trick to a quick look-up, there is a much faster way to get the table and field name using the “Monitor” function in Smart Office. (Please note, this functionality is only available for users who are administrators of Smart Office. You can tell if you’re an admin if you have the Administration Tools in the Navigator widget, with the Profile Editor, and other such tools.)

In any non-list panel (i.e. not B), select any field | right click | Monitor | Show All. Then hover over any amber-shaded field to see the field name followed by the table name after the slash. Any red-shaded fields are calculations or non-table related fields.

This feature is especially helpful when you want to identify fields in toolboxes or other programs that contain fields from multiple tables. It takes away all the guesswork that can otherwise be part of your search. In this example from MWS411-Delivery.Open Line Toolbox, fields from MHDISL as well as MHDISH are in this panel. To release the monitor feature, click anywhere on the panel.

It’s so simple, but I couldn’t find any documentation about this feature in the SmartOffice documentation. As far as I know it could have been there for some time – thanks to word-of-mouth, I found out about this feature, and so I am happy to share it with you on Thibaud’s blog. Spread the word!!

In SmartOffice 10.2 the Monitor was replaced by Advanced | Show Information, which is available on most fields by using a right-click. The information includes the table name, field type, field name, field length and other panel information. It’s very handy.